What would we learn if animals could tell their own stories? Eric Baratay, a pioneering researcher in animal histories in France, applies his knowledge of historical methodologies to give voice to some of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' most interesting animals. He offers brief yet innovative accounts of these animals' lives in a way that challenges the reader's thinking about animals. Baratay illustrates the need to develop a nonanthropocentric means of viewing the lives of animals and including animals themselves in the narrative of their lives. Animal Biographies launches an all-new investigation into the lives of animals and is a major contribution to the field of animal studies. This English translation of Eric Baratay's Biographies animales: Des Vies retrouvees, originally published in France in 2017 (Editions du Seuil), uses firsthand accounts starting from the nineteenth century about specific animals who lived in Europe and the United States to reconstruct, as best as possible, their stories as they would have experienced them. History is, after all, not just the domain of humans. Animals have their own. Baratay breaks the model of human exceptionalism to give us the biographies of some of history and literature's most famous animals. The reader will catch a glimpse of storied lives as told by Modestine, the donkey who carried Robert Louis Stevenson through the Alps; Warrior, the World War I horse made famous in Steven Spielberg's War Horse; Islero, the bull who gored Spain's greatest bullfighter; and others. Through these stories we discover their histories, their personalities, and their shared experiences with others of their species.

This original new work is the fascinating result of sociologist and documentary filmmaker Agnès De Féo’s ten-year exploration of the phenomenon of niqab wearing. It is at once a groundbreaking study and a series of compelling first-person accounts from French and Francophone women who wear or have worn the niqab in France’s Salafi communities. With the backdrop of the French government’s 2010 ban on full facial veiling in public spaces, which itself has shaped the phenomenon, De Féo draws on her subjects’ own words to show their agency, working against the clichés that often underlie public views of the niqab—that it is purely the result of masculine pressure, for example, or extreme religiosity or nationalism, or the submissive desire to disappear. Instead, she shows, the niqab is multivalent: women wear it for reasons that range from religious piety to the desire to rebel against mainstream society, family, or the rule of law. The reasons are complex, overdetermined, contradictory, or even inconsistent, but they are the women’s own. Despite being worn only by a small minority of Muslim women, the Islamic garment has nonetheless been a major source of intense political, religious, and cultural debate in France. Searching to understand, rather than speculate, De Féo chose to approach the people who wear the niqab, and to make them, rather the veil itself, the subject of her research. Her unprecedented study, based on more than 200 interviews, reveals the many factors—social, political, geopolitical, and psychological—underpinning a personal choice that is not always as religious as it seems. The book ends with sixteen captivating interviews giving voice to stories rarely heard. With finesse and discernment, the author debunks the myths surrounding the wearing of the niqab, and sheds light on a practice subject to misunderstanding and prejudice, offering the reader unique insight. Challenging our preconceived notions and stereotypes about women who wear any form of Islamic apparel, but particularly the niqab, The Niqab in France introduces a group of women each with her own life story, her own share of personal struggles, aspirations, and desires, and her own claim to a certain place in society. This work received support for excellence in publication and translation from Albertine Translation, a program created by Villa Albertine.

Winner, Prix Litteraire Paris-Liege 2021 Winner, French Voices Award for Excellence in Publication and Translation When we speak of mass killers, we may speak of radicalized ideologues, mediocrities who only obey orders, or bloodthirsty monsters. Who are these men who kill on a mass scale? What is their consciousness? Do they not feel horror or compassion? Richard Rechtman's Living in Death offers new answers to a question that has haunted us at least since the Holocaust. For Rechtman, it is not ideologies that kill, but people. This book descends into the ordinary life of people who execute hundreds every day, the same way others go to the office. Bringing philosophical sophistication to the ordinary, the book constitutes an anthropology of mass killers. Turning away from existing psychological and philosophical accounts of genocide's perpetrators, Rechtman instead explores the conditions under which administering death becomes a job like any other. Considering Cambodia, Rwanda, and other mass killings, Living in Death draws on a vast array of archival research, psychological theory, and anecdotes from the author's clinical work with refugees and former participants in genocide. Rechtman mounts a compelling case for reframing and refocusing our attempts to explain-and preempt-acts of mass torture, rape, killing, and extermination. What we must see, Rechtman argues, is that for genocidaires (those who carry out acts that are or approach genocide), there is nothing extraordinary, unusual, or world-historical about their actions. On the contrary, they are preoccupied with the same mundane things that characterize any other job: interactions with colleagues, living conditions, a drink and a laugh at the end of the day. To understand this is to understand how things came to be the way they are-and how they might be different.

Searing in its energies and mysterious in its icy depths, Love is Colder than the Lake is a tour-de-force of the experimental French poet Liliane Giraudon’s power and range. Love is Colder than the Lake, the first full-length translation of a book of Giraudon’s poetry into English, weaves together stories dreamed and experienced, fragments of autobiographical trauma, and scraps of political and sexual violence to create an alchemical and incantatory texture that is all Giraudon’s own. In its feminist attention and allusive stylistic registers, Love is Colder than The Lake claims a unique position among contemporary French literature. The heroes (or anti-heroes) in this collection include Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Lorine Niedecker, Emma Goldman, Chantal Akerman, the Marquis de Sade, and the unnamed lake itself. Giraudon’s writing, editing, and visual work have been influential in France for decades, and English-speaking readers will thrill to this challenging, important voice.

-- Illustrates the importance of cultural background in the tourist experience
-- Shows how to understand this background to achieve successful marketing and increased profits
-- Provides statistical and analytical tools and explains how to use them to analyse this vital cross cultural behaviour

Cross-Cultural Behaviour in Tourism: concepts and analysis is unique in that it provides an in-depth insight into the concepts, definitions and measures of the essential cultural components that encourage tourism. It provides a guide to the statistical tools available to be able to analyse cross-cultural behaviour and how to use them to your advantage.

This book is important for those in the following areas of industry:
-- Tourism: illustrates the importance of cultural background in the tourist experience and how it is a major determinant in repeat visitation.
-- Marketing: an understanding of the cultural background of a destination is vital to formulate successful marketing strategies.
-- Management: provides valuable examples on how cultures influence tourist behaviour and decision-making; helping managers to develop cross-cultural skills and dealing with tourists from diverse cultural backgrounds.
-- International business: provides the strategies that today's business professionals need to work effectively within multicultural environments.

Cross-Cultural Behaviour in Tourism: Concepts and Analysis is important reading for those in the following areas of industry: * Tourism: illustrates the importance of cultural background in the tourist experience and how it is a major determinant in repeat visitation * Marketing: provides an understanding of the cultural background of a destination that is vital when formulating successful marketing strategies * Management: provides valuable examples on how cultures influence tourist behaviour and decision-making, helping managers to develop cross-cultural skills and deal with tourists from diverse cultural backgrounds Tourism is a service industry where people from different nationalities meet. In today's international marketplace it is imperative that those in the industry understand the influence of national cultures on their consumers in order to compete successfully for a market share. The book is accompanied by online resources which can be found at www.bh.com/companions/0750656689. These resources include an account of Hypothesis Testing, together with a detailed glossary and a comprehensive reference list of relevant materials.

A wry, cinematic tour through multiple forms: the poem, the vignette, the play-all set in our laughably lamentable contemporary world. In three poems, one play, and three short stories, Stephane Bouquet's Common Life offers a lively, searching vision of contemporary life, politics, and sociality. At a moment at which the fabric of everyday social life is increasingly threatened across the globe, this book is a necessary exercise of the literary imagination: what, it asks, does it mean to inhabit the world together today? With humor and sincerity, Common Life imagines the utopias of collectivity, friendship and love that might enable hope for the present and the future.

This original new work is the fascinating result of sociologist and documentary filmmaker Agnès De Féo’s ten-year exploration of the phenomenon of niqab wearing. It is at once a groundbreaking study and a series of compelling first-person accounts from French and Francophone women who wear or have worn the niqab in France’s Salafi communities. With the backdrop of the French government’s 2010 ban on full facial veiling in public spaces, which itself has shaped the phenomenon, De Féo draws on her subjects’ own words to show their agency, working against the clichés that often underlie public views of the niqab—that it is purely the result of masculine pressure, for example, or extreme religiosity or nationalism, or the submissive desire to disappear. Instead, she shows, the niqab is multivalent: women wear it for reasons that range from religious piety to the desire to rebel against mainstream society, family, or the rule of law. The reasons are complex, overdetermined, contradictory, or even inconsistent, but they are the women’s own. Despite being worn only by a small minority of Muslim women, the Islamic garment has nonetheless been a major source of intense political, religious, and cultural debate in France. Searching to understand, rather than speculate, De Féo chose to approach the people who wear the niqab, and to make them, rather the veil itself, the subject of her research. Her unprecedented study, based on more than 200 interviews, reveals the many factors—social, political, geopolitical, and psychological—underpinning a personal choice that is not always as religious as it seems. The book ends with sixteen captivating interviews giving voice to stories rarely heard. With finesse and discernment, the author debunks the myths surrounding the wearing of the niqab, and sheds light on a practice subject to misunderstanding and prejudice, offering the reader unique insight. Challenging our preconceived notions and stereotypes about women who wear any form of Islamic apparel, but particularly the niqab, The Niqab in France introduces a group of women each with her own life story, her own share of personal struggles, aspirations, and desires, and her own claim to a certain place in society. This work received support for excellence in publication and translation from Albertine Translation, a program created by Villa Albertine.

Finalist, French-American Foundation Translation Prize In an age that prizes political and personal transparency, In Defense of Secrets champions the secret as what permits relation and ensures our humanity. Psychoanalyst and philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle drowned in 2017 in an attempt to rescue two children caught in the ocean. Her work lives on, though, in this provocative and necessary book. Through etymologies and case studies, personal history and incisive commentary on contemporary society, In Defense of Secrets returns us to the fundamental psychic scene of the secret. The secret, for Dufourmantelle, is not a code to be cracked or a firewall to be penetrated but a dynamic and powerful entity that permits relation and that ensures our humanity. Tracking the secret though art and literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and sociology, from the Inquisition to the present, Dufourmantelle's writing spirals around the question of the secret's value. In our age, when political and personal transparency seem to be prized above all-lives posted on the Internet, information leaked, whistles blown, taboos absent except with respect to the secret itself-In Defense of Secrets champions what remains hidden, private, veiled, hushed, just out of sight. The secret is on the side of nature, not science; organic growth, not technology; love's generosity, not knowledge's grasp. For Dufourmantelle, the secret is a powerful and dynamic thing: deadly if unheard or misused, perhaps, but equally the source of creativity and of ethics. An ethics of the secret, we can hear her say, means listening hard and sensitively, respecting the secret in its secret essence, unafraid of it and open to what it has to say.

Finalist, French-American Foundation Translation Prize In an age that prizes political and personal transparency, In Defense of Secrets champions the secret as what permits relation and ensures our humanity. Psychoanalyst and philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle drowned in 2017 in an attempt to rescue two children caught in the ocean. Her work lives on, though, in this provocative and necessary book. Through etymologies and case studies, personal history and incisive commentary on contemporary society, In Defense of Secrets returns us to the fundamental psychic scene of the secret. The secret, for Dufourmantelle, is not a code to be cracked or a firewall to be penetrated but a dynamic and powerful entity that permits relation and that ensures our humanity. Tracking the secret though art and literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and sociology, from the Inquisition to the present, Dufourmantelle's writing spirals around the question of the secret's value. In our age, when political and personal transparency seem to be prized above all-lives posted on the Internet, information leaked, whistles blown, taboos absent except with respect to the secret itself-In Defense of Secrets champions what remains hidden, private, veiled, hushed, just out of sight. The secret is on the side of nature, not science; organic growth, not technology; love's generosity, not knowledge's grasp. For Dufourmantelle, the secret is a powerful and dynamic thing: deadly if unheard or misused, perhaps, but equally the source of creativity and of ethics. An ethics of the secret, we can hear her say, means listening hard and sensitively, respecting the secret in its secret essence, unafraid of it and open to what it has to say.

Winner, Prix Litteraire Paris-Liege 2021 Winner, French Voices Award for Excellence in Publication and Translation When we speak of mass killers, we may speak of radicalized ideologues, mediocrities who only obey orders, or bloodthirsty monsters. Who are these men who kill on a mass scale? What is their consciousness? Do they not feel horror or compassion? Richard Rechtman's Living in Death offers new answers to a question that has haunted us at least since the Holocaust. For Rechtman, it is not ideologies that kill, but people. This book descends into the ordinary life of people who execute hundreds every day, the same way others go to the office. Bringing philosophical sophistication to the ordinary, the book constitutes an anthropology of mass killers. Turning away from existing psychological and philosophical accounts of genocide's perpetrators, Rechtman instead explores the conditions under which administering death becomes a job like any other. Considering Cambodia, Rwanda, and other mass killings, Living in Death draws on a vast array of archival research, psychological theory, and anecdotes from the author's clinical work with refugees and former participants in genocide. Rechtman mounts a compelling case for reframing and refocusing our attempts to explain-and preempt-acts of mass torture, rape, killing, and extermination. What we must see, Rechtman argues, is that for genocidaires (those who carry out acts that are or approach genocide), there is nothing extraordinary, unusual, or world-historical about their actions. On the contrary, they are preoccupied with the same mundane things that characterize any other job: interactions with colleagues, living conditions, a drink and a laugh at the end of the day. To understand this is to understand how things came to be the way they are-and how they might be different.

This book offers a manifesto for a radical existentialism aiming to regenerate the place of the outside that contemporary theory underestimates. Neyrat calls this outside "atopia": not utopia, a dreamt place out of the world where everything would be perfect, but atopia, the internal outside that is at the core of every being. Atopia is neither an object that an "object-oriented ontology" would be able to formalize, nor the matter that "new materialisms" could identify. Atopia is what constitutes the existence of any object or subject, its singularity or more precisely its "eccentricity." Etymologically, to exist means "to be outside" and the book argues that every entity is outside, thrown in the world, wandering without any ontological anchor. In this regard, a radicalized existentialism does not privilege human beings (as Sartre and Heidegger did), but considers existence as a universal condition that concerns every being. It is important to offer a radical existentialism because the current denial of the outside is politically, and aesthetically, damaging. Only an atopian philosophy-a bizarre, extravagant, heretic philosophy-can care for our fear of the outside. For therapeutic element, a radical existentialism favors everything that challenges the compact immanence in which we are trapped, losing capacity to imagine political alternatives. To sustain these alternatives, the book identifies the atopia as a condition of the possibility to break immanence and analyze these breaks in human and animal subjectivity, language, politics and metaphysics.

Poetry that sings of southern Appalachian beauty and crisis.   Set in a landscape of red sunsets and wildfire smoke, Queen Anne’s lace on the roadsides, and toxic chemicals in the watershed, Lindsay Turner’s The Upstate is a book about southern Appalachia in a contemporary moment of change and development. Layering a personal lyric voice with a broader awareness of labor issues and political and ecological crises, The Upstate redefines a regional poetics as one attuned to national and global systems. These poems observe and emote, mourning acts of devastation and raging in their own quiet way against their continuation.   The poems in The Upstate arise from moments of darkness and desperation, mobilizing a critical intelligence against the status quo of place and history, all while fiercely upholding belief in the role of poetry to affect these conditions. Turner’s poems weave spells around beloved places and people, yearning to shield them from destruction and to profess faith in the delicate beauties of the world at hand.  

This book offers a manifesto for a radical existentialism aiming to regenerate the place of the outside that contemporary theory underestimates. Neyrat calls this outside "atopia": not utopia, a dreamt place out of the world where everything would be perfect, but atopia, the internal outside that is at the core of every being. Atopia is neither an object that an "object-oriented ontology" would be able to formalize, nor the matter that "new materialisms" could identify. Atopia is what constitutes the existence of any object or subject, its singularity or more precisely its "eccentricity." Etymologically, to exist means "to be outside" and the book argues that every entity is outside, thrown in the world, wandering without any ontological anchor. In this regard, a radicalized existentialism does not privilege human beings (as Sartre and Heidegger did), but considers existence as a universal condition that concerns every being. It is important to offer a radical existentialism because the current denial of the outside is politically, and aesthetically, damaging. Only an atopian philosophy-a bizarre, extravagant, heretic philosophy-can care for our fear of the outside. For therapeutic element, a radical existentialism favors everything that challenges the compact immanence in which we are trapped, losing capacity to imagine political alternatives. To sustain these alternatives, the book identifies the atopia as a condition of the possibility to break immanence and analyze these breaks in human and animal subjectivity, language, politics and metaphysics.

Henri Bergson has been the subject of keen interest within French philosophy ever since being championed by Gilles Deleuze and others. Yet his influence extends well beyond European philosophy, especially within Africa and South Asia. Postcolonial Bergson traces the influence of Bergson’s thought through the work of two major figures in the postcolonial struggle, Muhammad Iqbal and Léopold Sédar Senghor. Poets and statesmen as well as philosophers, both of these thinkers—the one Muslim and the other Catholic—played an essential political and intellectual role in the independence of their respective countries. Both found, in Bergson’s work, important support for their philosophical, cultural, and political projects. For Iqbal, a founding father of independent Pakistan, Bergson’s conceptions of time and creative evolution resonated with the need for the “reconstruction of religious thought in Islam,� a religious thought newly able to incorporate innovation and change. For Senghor, Bergsonian ideas of perception, intuition, and élan vital—filtered in part through the work of the French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin—proved crucial for thinking about African art, as well as foundational for his formulations of African socialism and his visions of an unalienated African future. At a moment of renewed interest in Bergson’s philosophy, this book, by a major figure in both French and African philosophy, gives an expanded idea of the political ramifications of Bergson’s thought in a postcolonial context.

Henri Bergson has been the subject of keen interest within French philosophy ever since being championed by Gilles Deleuze and others. Yet his influence extends well beyond European philosophy, especially within Africa and South Asia. Postcolonial Bergson traces the influence of Bergson's thought through the work of two major figures in the postcolonial struggle, Muhammad Iqbal and Leopold Sedar Senghor. Poets and statesmen as well as philosophers, both of these thinkers-the one Muslim and the other Catholic-played an essential political and intellectual role in the independence of their respective countries. Both found, in Bergson's work, important support for their philosophical, cultural, and political projects. For Iqbal, a founding father of independent Pakistan, Bergson's conceptions of time and creative evolution resonated with the need for the "reconstruction of religious thought in Islam," a religious thought newly able to incorporate innovation and change. For Senghor, Bergsonian ideas of perception, intuition, and elan vital-filtered in part through the work of the French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin-proved crucial for thinking about African art, as well as foundational for his formulations of African socialism and his visions of an unalienated African future. At a moment of renewed interest in Bergson's philosophy, this book, by a major figure in both French and African philosophy, gives an expanded idea of the political ramifications of Bergson's thought in a postcolonial context.